Let me make sure I've got this straight: somebody decides what beauty is and then the fellow with the most money gets to buy the beauty and he can either share it with the rest of us or he can lock it away and keep the beauty to himself. Either way, he's an art collector.
I don't buy it. Well, literally, of course. I never have any money. The concept makes no sense to me. I may be slow but I'm pretty sure the emperor has no clothes on. I see his talleywhacker.
There are beautiful, shimmering chunks and slivers of broken 7 Up bottles in most gutters. Nobody needs to point out to me that these pieces of trash rival rare emeralds that folks are killed over. They're free for the taking. Nobody wants anything that we can't agree has value.
Me? I suppose I'm something of an aesthete. Little bit of a snob about it, too, I suppose. I've seen oil slicks in the gutter after a rain that have taken my breath away.
I hope it rains today. Share your love. Give it away. That's valuable.
My mom's house was filled with clear containers of the green, blue and frosty white glass she picked up on the beach at Shillshole, along with pieces of rusty iron, part of an old lawn mower, bits of ceramic and concrete, and snapshots she took of graffiti covered walls and broken down buildings. And at the end she got more enjoyment from a small window than most of us get from a masterpiece of art. But she collected art, too, much of it from up and comers, some from those rare artists who've achieved middle class status. She had a good eye and a good heart.
ReplyDeleteHey Peter. Yeah, that's great. Just because someone pays a couple of million bucks for a piece of art doesn't make the art "bad." Your mom was just strong enough and bright enough to know where she saw beauty. I'm pretty sure that a good heart will guarantee a good eye.
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